Personal Reflection on Media Culture - Week 11

This is the last week for the blog assignment in Media Culture.
Our lecturer came in and announced to us the final topic for the blog assignment.

Of Culture and Technology

Culture is something that has existed since the earliest civilization, and it is different depending on many important factors. When it comes to factors, many would automatically assume that they are society and era. That may be true, but there is one important factor in culture that is always overlooked. And that is technology itself!

In a strange way, culture and technology affect each other without many of us noticing. Here's some of the questions asked about this.

1. What kind of culture influences through technology can you see from today’s world?

Obviously, instant text messaging such as SMS is one of the technologies that carry cultural influences. Through this technology, the culture of constant communication is embedded into the society that uses it. This way of constant communication allowed more people to be connected to each other without having to face each other, and it is a lot easier as well as cheap. Indirectly, this caused people to carry mobile phones around with them for most of the time (for convenience), which makes it another culture for modern society.

2. Is there a possibility to reshape the (new) culture today via new technology, How?

There is a possibility for a new culture to reshape through a new technology. Any new culture in the world are somehow indirectly dependent to technology.
For example, in ancient Egyptians rely on the technology of carving as part of education culture of that time. This was due to the absence of proper writing (or recording) methods other than using chisels to carve informations onto a slate of hard clay. Education culture during this time was limited only to nobles and rich people back then because of the technology back then. This proved that technology can shape culture.
Therefore, if a new technology, such as an improved and advanced computer-like mobile phone, the current modern culture would reshape accordingly to adapt to the functions brought by the new technology. The society might would not even realize that a change in culture had happened.

Personal Reflection on Media Culture - Week 10

A video was shown to the students as a part of the weekly blog assignments. We were to understand the contents of the video before writing our critical reflections regarding the relations between the information in the video with the theory of 'media imperialism'.

Media Imperialism

In the first class of Medial Culture for this week, a video entitled "The Power of Nightmares - Part 3: The Shadows in the Cave" was shown. It is a BBC documentary film directed by Adam Curtis. From what was shown in the film, the theory of 'media imperialism' was widely used.

1. 'Media Imperialism' is basically the theory for that by controlling the media industries, a country can control the flow of information as well as spreading biased and inaccurate news. An example of this theory shown in the video is when the US prosecuters paid witnesses to give unproven testimonies, all in order to prosecute Osama bin Laden.
   
2. Other than just the manipulation of information for the purpose of prosecution or accusation, 'media imperialism' is also shown in UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's action. He released statements about threats of terrorism through the mass media, gaining the support of the public. This has increased the strength of his authority.
   

Personal Reflection on Media Culture - Week 9

As for this week, there were nothing much other than some new theories about media based on Marshall McLuhan's studies. And there's also the announcement of a deadline for a recently given assignment.

Tetrad of Media

The 9th week is here, along with a new topic of the week.

Tetrad of Media

Tetrad of Media is a summary made by Marshall McLuhan about 'the effects of medium to a society' in the form of a diagram, as shown below. This diagram became widely used to study about various types of media. Lets take instant messaging services (SMS) as a medium example.

1. First of all, this medium serves as an extension of communications between individuals and it has vastly improved due to increasing demands for its convenience. Because it can transfer messages back and forth quickly, the usage of letters to send messages is becoming lesser and lesser since instant messaging can save lots of time.
   
2. Through instant messaging, it is easier for people to engage in conversations and this encourages the sense of conversation as well as the sense of socializing (although not through the face-to-face method). Yet still, this medium can also backfire upon the society if the medium is over extended. Even though instant messaging can connect people using electronic media, individuals will turn more seclusive due to the absence of the need to meet other individuals face-to-face.
   

Personal Reflection on Media Culture - Week 8

The class today is the first after the mid-term break ended. Sadly enough, most of the students present had to wait for almost half an hour before the lecturer came in, announcing that today's class was canceled. Luckily enough, the attendances will be taken along during the other class. I was surprised that we (FCM students) received another assignment suddenly. Well, that's all I got for this week then.

Differences in 3 terms?

After a week-long holiday, I'm back at MMU (Multimedia University) again. For starters, the topic given for this week seem to be related to genres in multimedia.

What are the differences between the terms obscenity, pornography and indecency?

1. Well then, I will just put in some brief meanings about these terms first then.

• Obscenity - means the state or quality of being obscene (offensiveness to the standards of sexual morality). It is also used to describe expressions that are sexually offensive.
• Pornography - an explicit sexual depiction with the purpose to sexually arouse the viewer of the material ( books, magazines, videos, etc )
• Indecency - it means the state or quality of being unseemly, immodest and/or vulgar. This term can also refer to the indecent acts.
  

2.Now, with the terms explained above, time to have a look at what's different between them.

First off, pornography is usually associated to nudity, while obscenity and indecency are not always like that.
As for indecency, it can be considered (in my own opinion) as this term does not need to be related to sexual indecency all the time. It can be other things such as the act of showing rude gestures and speaking foul languages to people, or even wearing attires that are offensive in the eyes of the public community.
Finally, the term obscenity is often portrayed as improper depiction that sparks disgust to communities. Obscenity can differ according to different societies and even individuals. Yet somehow this term is somewhat similar to indecency, only on things. (I do not know why though)

This is all I can do for the topic of this week. In case if I found out new informations regarding these terms, then I would try to update this post.

Personal Reflection on Media Culture - Week 7

Week 7 ~ There's something new, or to be precise, improvement, in the Media Culture lecture class this week. When I mentioned improvement, I meant the improvement in the interaction between the lecturers in the class. Using the method of choosing ( in a simple but interesting way) students to discuss topic given, basically the entire class was paying attention. From what I saw, they were all entertained, yet receiving knowledge and opinion from fellow classmates at the same time. I'm looking forward to more of this kind of interaction in future classes.

Media Literacy - its importance in FCM

For this week, there's a new term in the Media Culture topic.

Media Literacy

What exactly is this thing?
Media literacy basically involve three processes;

• accessing,
• analyzing,
• evaluating,
• and creating messages.

These processes are crucial and encourages people to question about the things that they see, read and watch. Incidentally, through media literacy, messages presented by various media can be analyzed in order to identify other things such as censorship and bias. It can also point out the information that are manipulated or wrongly presented.

But why is media literacy important to us, the Faculty of Creative Multimedia (FCM) students?
The answer is that, through media literacy, we can increase our understanding in several matters regarding mass media. For example;

• Understand how to identify misconceptions in information given.
• Prevent the influence of manipulated information.

That is all I could say for this week's topic. Overall, the term media literacy is important to those that seek to understand mass media.

Personal Reflection on Media Culture - Week 6

Since there was no lecture class this week, I had nothing to say about it. But anyway, I'll be looking forward to next week's lecture class.That is all I got for this week's post.

Media Stereotype

What is 'media stereotype'?

This is the question for this week. We all see stereotypes everywhere, in any form available. But what exactly is it?
First of all, stereotype is basically an overall impression or general idea of something.

Therefore, here's an explanation about this week's topic.
Media stereotype is a general impression given to the audiences regarding certain things portrayed by the media. This can't be avoided since it is important to make the audience easily and quickly understand something presented to them. Yet still, media stereotype can be misleading and can cause misconception.

If you need to find out more about what media stereotype is all about, please feel free to visit this link: http://web.media.mit.edu/~ayah/MediaTheories/

Personal Reflection on Media Culture - Week 5

Week 5 ~ Same as usual. The class holds many new knowledges to the students, yet the attendance sheet was passed around only when the class is over. This is quite an inconvenience to students who had to rush to other classes right after the Media Culture class. That's all could say for this week.

True or False - are everything on Internet are authentic?

Here's a question;

Do you often take what is on the Internet as truth without thinking much about it?

There are those who does not care much about informations on the Net as long as they sound real enough. But there are also those that does care and double-check on the informations that they got.
Here's what I think about this matter;

• The Internet provides open access for everyone, from news to informations. Yet still, due to the limitless access, the informations can also be tampered by anyone. This will cause the informations released on the Net to be false without anybody realizing it. Therefore, I don't take things on the Internet as truth.
• Not everything on the Net are fake, yet not all are true as well. In my opinion regarding this topic, I think it would be proper to ensure that the information is real before accepting it. One of the ways is to refer to other sources and compare the same thing in order to make sure it is not merely fake informations given by other Internet users.
  

Personal Reflection on Media Culture - Week 4

Week 4 ~ Here's what I think about the Media Culture class in FCM, MMU;
It is satisfactory, or can even considered better, since the way the informations are given are through slideshow and lecture talks from the lecturers themselves. To top it off, the slideshow shown in the class are always later uploaded onto the university's website for download as notes.

Social Media

Recently, there's this video on Youtube that I saw which gave me new info about social media.
Even though the content wasn't really directly shown.

The video shows to the viewers that;

1. In the current world, many people are creating their own personal products at lower cost. And with this variation of products, it is harder to search for the products that they desire.
2. Hence come the function of a message/discussion/forum board, where people of different backgrounds are brought together and share their thoughts, including the posting of their personal digital works such as a video.

For those who would like to know what's in the video, please go to this location;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIOClX1jPE

Welcome to Media Chat!

Hello there and welcome to Media Chat Blog!
First of all, this blog is dedicated to discussion about various topics regarding media in our world.
I will be posting both the topic and my opinion about the topic from time to time.